Kaizoku X Zanpokuto
by nvzblgrrl
Summary: Muramasa is seeking strong Zanpokuto in the Grand Line to have on reserve for the all too likely scenario where his attempted take-over of the Soul Society goes sour. Are the Straw Hat Pirates going to be able to turn their Zanpokuto spirits back to their side when they don't even know their names?
1. The Bloody Eyed Man

Muramasa watched the pirate ship with interest flickering in his pale turquoise eyes, though his otherwise flat expression would have never revealed it. These were not Shinigami, Arrancar, or anything that by any leap of logic should possess a zanpokuto. But these mere humans did possess the soul-cutting blades. Curious.

A breeze tousled his hair as he looked down several hundred feet to the vessel that to him stood out as easily as the North Star. These humans were giving off more spirit energy than half of the entire Soul Society. And one even had multiple Zanpokuto spirits, something that he had only detected in two Captain-class Shinigami. Curiouser and curiouser.

This bore some further inspection. The zanpokuto ran towards the ship, the air easily hardening beneath his boots as he glided closer and closer.

* * *

It was an average day on the Thousand Sunny, at least as far as the word 'average' could describe the Straw Hat Pirates, wanted in every country around the globe for various crimes against the World Government and responsible for the defeat of at least two Shichibukai, and currently possessing a combined bounty exceeding 500.000.000 beri. Average wasn't really the word for these pirates, even on their worst day.

Luffy was fishing with Usopp and Chopper, while Brook sat nearby with a net in hand, ready to snag the next fish that the trio reeled in. This morning had been a good one for fishing, the lines never being long without something delicious tugging on the line to be let aboard the ship.

Zoro slept peacefully, not even noticing that Sanji had just walked over him again while servicing the two female members of the crew. Nami and Robin took the offered fruit cocktails with small smiles, something that always drove the cook mad with his love fantasies.

Nami looked to the sky, detecting an odd fluctuation of pressure that seemed out of place for the Grand Line, being rather too small and concentrated for a sea that was all about being both big and loud in every respect. Was it some sort of attack?

The sight of a pale man in strange clothes running towards the Sunny on thin air was one of the last things the navigator had expected to see, but it didn't slow her down at all. They had seen things crazier than this, heck, even Sanji could do the same trick if he put his mind to it. But something about this flying man felt wrong on the most basic level and filled her with the same sense of dread as an inescapable typhoon.

Nami reached for her staff, wincing as she failed to locate it. Why didn't she ever keep her weapons on hand like the boys? "Usopp!" She called to the sniper, who was supposed to be on watch though Franky had taken his shift.

"Huh?" He looked over to the navigator, squinting against the bright light as he sprang up from his seat. Was there a storm coming? A Marine ship? A Sea King?

Nami slid down the railing, trying to get to her Clima-tact before the flying man reached the Sunny. "We've got incoming! Someone-"

A deep, resonant voice cut in. "It's a bit late to be planning a defense against an enemy that has already breached your perimeter." Every eye on the ship turned to the speaker; a thin, anemic man with brown hair and strange markings around his closed eyes who held an elegant katana loosely in his long-nailed hand. "Reckless behavior for so small a crew, regardless of the strength you are able to throw around."

Before anyone could take action against him, he released the sword, the blade disintegrating into a wisp of violet light as it left his hand. Clawed fingers turned over hypnotically, slowly going from an open hand to a closed monkey fist. His eyes opened as he performed this ordinarily innocuous action, the right filled to the brim with blood that streaked down his face in a crimson stream.

"I release your zanpokuto from you. They will no longer be under your domination."

With those cryptic words, wave of darkness flooded in at the edges of Nami's vision, though she could see enough in that second before everything turned black that everyone else was falling to the deck as well.

The bloody eyed man's voice cut in just before complete unconsciousness took the navigator into oblivion.

"From now on, the Zanpokuto shall rule over those who dared call their selves our masters and despair in the shadow on those who they once claimed dominion."

* * *

Weak.

Muramasa looked with disdain at the boy wearing the straw hat. He had lasted the longest of the crew, a mere four seconds longer than the animal, who had been the first to go down, and half a second longer than the swordsman, who had almost managed to draw his sword fully from its sheath. A futile gesture in the face of a far superior opponent, but commendable in its own way. The Zanpokuto kicked away the blade. It was just an empty shell now.

"Shiriririri~! We're gonna go now, Mura-guy?" A sound like a monkey's chattering could be heard from the crow's nest, though Muramasa didn't look up to confirm what he knew.

"I have no further purpose here, but I expect the rest of you to remain and keep this vessel secure for use as a base here. I will call upon you if I have need of your power." A chorus of affirmation and vague disappointment could be heard with these words as the first rogue Zanpokuto leapt into the air, simultaneously tearing a hole through reality to access the place between dimensions that held the secret to travel between worlds.

As he stepped through the garganta, Muramasa did not look back. If these zanpokuto were sufficient for his needs, they would still be under his spell when he next called for them.

If not… well, it wasn't that pressing of an issue compared to declaring war on the entire Soul Society.


	2. Captured By The Sword

Nami moaned as she tried to wake up, a throbbing headache preventing her from remembering exactly what had happened to make her fall asleep on the deck. There had been a stranger…

As the navigator tried rising to her feet, a strong pair of hands gracefully took her by the arm, giving her much appreciated support. Nami could see a pair of black trousered legs, though she wasn't anywhere near able to look her assistant in the eye. "Arigato, Sanji-ku-" She froze as she looked the person full in the face. This wasn't…

The man, now holding on to her arm with a vice-like grip, looked at Nami with a level expression that seemed void of malicious intent, his crystalline blue eyes drilling through hers in absolute focus. "I am the zanpokuto Diarmuid. You are now my prisoner, Nami-san. Do not resist."

* * *

The crew sat on the grass, bound in copious amounts of metal chain, watching as these strange figures loitered about the deck, each going about their business with varying levels of disregard to their prisoners. Luffy was taking the events in surprisingly good humor, even as the strange monkey-man wearing a red martial arts outfit pushed another shot of Haki through the chains surrounding the crew's Devil Fruit users.

The Straw Hat captain grinned widely as he watched the various zanpokuto wander about the deck. "Oi, mystery blades~! Be my nakama!"

The monkey-man pulled a strange angry face. "If you can't bother to learn any of our proper names," He yipped in a surprisingly childish tone as he punched Luffy in the head, "How do you think we're going to take you bossing us around?"

"Okay. Hi, I'm Monkey D. Luffy and I'm gonna be King of the Pirates! Who are you?"

"Dammit, it ain't that easy!"

* * *

As the pair argued, Brook looked at a sickly looking man with ashy hair wearing a worn red scarf and a loose toga that seemed stained with years of dust. He seemed familiar, like someone he had met a lifetime ago, someone whose name seemed tantalizingly close…

* * *

Zoro watched his captors with a measured eye. The one in violet full plate armor had attracted his attention with both his impressive long sword and an oddly doleful manner for a warrior. The albino and the blood red girl were also of interest, as the pale man was completely at ease with the titanic amount of bloodlust that spilled off of the child.

The knight sat closest, kneeling in front of his planted sword in a pose of worship or supplication as he prayed to some unknown god. He apparently could tell that he was being watched, speaking to the Santouryu master in a grave voice. "Does not the weight of guilt lie upon your heart, Roronoa Zoro?"

The Pirate Hunter gave a feral grin. "What use do I have for something like that? It's in the past and I can't do anything about it now." He leaned forward, not quite straining against his bonds but still causing the chains to creak noticeably. "Should I?"

The knight looked Zoro full in the eye, steely blue-grey eyes boring into the equally flinty eyes of his prisoner. "In the time that I have spent with you, I have not known you to commit acts that would prove dishonorable for a man in your position."

The swordsman's smile turned from wild to confidant and smug. "Quite a statement from someone like you, Arondight?"

The zanpokuto shifted his gaze towards the endless ocean, sheathing his sword as his expressionless eyes fixed on a point beyond the horizon. He waited a long minute before responding to his master's words.

"That's true enough... Master Roronoa." _You were always keen on listening to your blades… even learning our true names without interference. Our loyalty would not be so quick to waver in face of your own unconquerable devotion, regardless of the promises of one such as Muramasa._

* * *

Diarmuid watched Arondight interact with his master, a twinge of envy stabbing his heart as the two seemed to connect. Why couldn't his user be a worthy master? The bastard that he was stuck with was shameful, a disgrace to the name of 'gentleman'.

He watched the cook's eyes following Rosenrot's path around the deck, specifically trained on her… _posterior_. As he face palmed, he wondered what he had done to deserve such a punishment.

* * *

Rosenrot ignored the perverted cook's lustful looks, her hidden eyes trained on the perimeter of the ship. Some of her bandages were beginning to come loose, letting the salty air sting her cracked skin so disturbingly evocative of burnt toast. Chopper had noticed and as the raven haired zanpokuto caught his horrified expression, she walked over, her light steps not making a single noise as she crossed the grassy deck. As she crouched down in front of the little reindeer, a sense of curiosity bled into her mind.

"You are concerned about my wounds?" She spoke softly, her voice thick with mysterious origins and enigmatic experiences. Chopper nodded, still terrified in the monstrous presence of this surreptitious woman who seemed perfectly balanced on the edge between life and death. Rosenrot patted the top of his hat, faintly affected by his concern for her health. "They are old and are not of trouble. But your worry is… how would you say…? Touching."

She walked away, somewhat satisfied with her mistress's choice of nakama.

* * *

Brook frowned in concentration. The name was on the tip of his tongue, _although as a skeleton, _Brook chuckled internally,_ I do not have a tongue…_ But back to seriousness, because the memory of this man seemed impossibly old for his face, being from when he was still among the Rumbar Pirates…

"…Orpheus-san?" Brook winced internally at the stumbling of his speech. Why was he so nervous? Was this person not a reflection of himself in a sense.

The worn out man seemed like one possessed by an obsession more powerful than death, each movement of his being telegraphing a tiredness that was ingrained into his very soul along with a compulsion to continue forward.

As Brook looked into what was left of the man's face, his initial feeling of terror at the sight of a missing eye and blood spatters was replaced by a sensation of loss as the skeleton read what was left of his zanpokuto's face. As if the overwhelming emptiness and despair he could feeling in Orpheus, who had been so full of life the last time they had really met, was the way he himself could have so easily gone.

A voice cracked with tears and long screaming struggled from the battered zanpokuto. "Have you seen Eurydice?" Orpheus choked out, his remaining eye blindly fixed upon Brook's skeletal face.

"Captain Yorki's zanpokuto? The tree woman?"

"Eurydice. I can't find her. I can't hear her. I can't see her."

As a trailing wrapping from the mummy touched on the ashen Orpheus, his head whipped to the side trying to figure out what had touched him, allowing Brook the unexpected and horrifying sight of what appeared to be dried trickles of blood coming from his ears.


End file.
